About Me

I am an old-fashioned American citizen who believes in our traditional values of freedom, truth, and justice. When I see our laws and government subverted and twisted into service of the undemocratic, powerful, corporate oligarchy, I must react with a patriotic defense of our values. I strongly oppose the ongoing destruction of what is left of American democracy and shall give voice to our common cause of freedom.
I invite you to share my thoughts. I also welcome your comments, be they contradictory, corrective, or complimentary. Only one comment and response will be allowed for anonymous trolls. Repeated, unidentified, and off-topic trolling will be deleted as spam.

Monday, March 20, 2017

Make America Smart Again

Restoring sanity, truth, and decency in our country may be just a futile dream now that the Great American Tragedy of Donald Trump is unfolding. But when the dream dies so does our representative democratic republic.

Ignorance, bigotry, scorn for truth, science, the arts, journalism and a free press are the ugly and cruel operating principles of the authoritarian white nationalists in control of the Executive Branch of our federal government.

Their popularity is sinking into the unprecedented sub-40% approval ratings. They don't care, of course. They have no mandate, and working for the interests of the American people has never been their goal.

Far Right power has always followed one path, and that always leads to militarism, civil rights abuses, trickle up wealth and stripping our constitutional provision for the general welfare. As the military and law enforcement agencies get more money and power, with less accountability for the latter, public health, safety nets, public services, education, and scientific and medical research are put to the chopping block.

Freedom and democracy are in a desperate struggle for survival against repressive authoritarian rule. The authoritarian nationalists lie, cheat and steal in order to rob from the poor and reward the rich.

The American people are losing in the one sided conflict between democracy and the authoritarianism of the economic elites. And the authoritarians will demonize anyone who speaks this truth.

Why is Trump the president of the United States? Orwell knew. "Ignorance is strength".

After
the election, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson told Stephen Colbert, “I think we have a four-year
mission now. I think what we need to do, let us together, make America smart
again.”

There's no
doubt on Sunday March 19th,Tyson was referring to Trump’s proposed cuts to science, the arts, health,
education and more in this series of tweets:

The
fastest way to Make a America Weak Again: Cut science funds to our agencies
that support it.

The
fastest way to Make America Sick Again: Cut funding to the National Institutes
of Health

The
fastest way to Make America Stupid: Cut funds to programs that support
education.

The
fastest way to thwart Earth's life-support systems for us all: Turn EPA into
EDA — the Environmental Destruction Agency.

The
fastest way to melt glaciers & flood the World's coastal cities: Ignore
scientists and do nothing to stem the rise of CO2

We
can all imagine a land that provides no support for Art. But is that a place
you’d want to Live? To Visit? To Play?

The
very best way to support and feed your delusions: Surround yourself with people
whose world views match yours exactly.

We
all want to Make America Great Again. But that won't happen until we first Make
America Smart Again.

It boils down to this: If more Americans listened to and believed this man over the arrogant evil buffoon in the White House, we may have a slim chance for progress, fairness, equality and sanity.

Reread your post and thought the following should be emphasized. We live in turbulent and critical times, not unlike a generation ago when fascism and nationalistic militarism encircled the globe.

"Far Right power has always followed one path, and that always leads to militarism, civil rights abuses, trickle up wealth and stripping our constitutional provision for the general welfare. As the military and law enforcement agencies get more money and power, with less accountability for the latter, public health, safety nets, public services, education, and scientific and medical research are put to the chopping block."

Paraphrasing Mark Twain, history may not necessarily repeat itself -- but it sure does rhyme.

Did you mean "resist and persist"? I suppose desist from all normalization is good too.

History rhymes, and even repeats, with the path and goals of the radical Right.

And here we go again. Time for more of the failed policies of tax cuts for the rich and de-regulation of Wall Street and polluters. It is the path away from human evolution and towards self-extinction.

We have chosen the latter too often.

Human self-extinction is certain if we cannot learn even the simplest and easily proveable lessons.

The sooner we as a species understand that following the authoritarians of the far-Right means human suffering, death and extinction, the better off we all will be. (Ask any Iraqi, who hasn't already joined ISIS, about human suffering and death.) Their "gift" from con-servative Republicans. And there's more to follow.

Our species is handicapped by our primitive reptilian brains. While necessary for early evolution, the overactive fight/flight programming of the amygdala is destructive to our present and future survival. Unfortunately there is a vast industry of far-Right politicians and far-Right propaganda, dedicated to triggering our fear centers.

Sadly this notion is still but a voice in the wilderness. More of us are beginning to understand this reality, but the forces against us are powerful and entrenched.

We are the resistance. They are the enemies of not only basic common decency, but civilized human survival.

Dave Dubya: "Did you mean 'resist and persist'? I suppose desist from all normalization is good too."

Yes, of course, desist from accepting all the "neo-normal". Reject it.

"And here we go again. Time for more of the failed policies of tax cuts for the rich and de-regulation of Wall Street and polluters. It is the path away from human evolution and towards self-extinction."

It's the same shit, different day. Of course the low-information voters, like Chuck, got snookered again. They always do. It's similar to what happened when the old women only searched for her lost eyeglasses under the lamp -- simply because the light was brighter.

"The sooner we as a species understand that following the authoritarians of the far-Right means human suffering, death and extinction, the better off we all will be."

People like Chuck will never figure it out. People like Chuck lived next door to Auschwitz and never questioned what was going on. In their mind it had to be okay. Mr. Paine seems to be getting sucked in, also, for some reason.

"We are the resistance. They are the enemies of not only basic common decency, but civilized human survival."

Sadly, you're correct.

We're now in "Day 73" of this fake government; this fake presidency. Typically, especially when given a congressional majority, a new administration embarks on great things within the first 100 days. So my questions are: Where's the new-and-improved health care law? Where are all the new and shiny plants, spitting out all the new high-paying and benefited jobs? Where are the plans for transforming and upgrading all failing infrastructure in the nation? For that matter, where's the wall? I don't hear or see that talked or written about any longer.